Screens

Summary

Perfect Dark for the Nintendo 64 is a showpiece of what the console is capable of. The unofficial sequel to Goldeneye (a game many would argue as one of the best ever), this is an absolutely stunning first person shooter. The RAM expansion pack is required to access all the game modes, most importantly the single player game, but it’s easy to see why this extra memory was necessary. Perfect Dark comes very close to becoming an interactive movie. Rare has managed to achieve a balance of graphics, gameplay and story.

In Perfect Dark you assume the role of Joanna Dark, who was codenamed: ‘Perfect’ after graduating the Carrington Institute with top honours. In the story mode, you receive a distress call from a scientist being held hostage at the evil dataDyne corporation headquarters. You start your mission to infiltrate dataDyne and rescue the scientist before he has his memory erased. Soon, you will learn of an intergalactic alien conspiracy that will push Joanna to her very limits.

Multi-player first player shooters have to be one of the best video game experiences around. In Perfect Dark four people can play simultaneously. Humans have decent artificial intelligence routines ( joke ) and subsequently, rarely make the same mistakes twice. So Perfect Dark is a constantly evolving experience where you have to learn and adapt or die. Simulants are introduced to provide an additional eight computer controlled players to the frenzy. You can even change the personality characteristics of the simulants, ranging from predator to kamikaze.

Perfect Dark has so much playability, originality and depth that already it has become a modern classic.